


Follow If You Lead

by octachoronAdrift



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Homestuck
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Skyrimstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-16
Updated: 2014-04-16
Packaged: 2018-01-19 15:37:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1475083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/octachoronAdrift/pseuds/octachoronAdrift
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something is happening. It resonates through your house, stirring the dust, lifting the spell of singular monotony that affects the course of daily life and somehow retracts the grey that has seeped from all of Ivarstead into your own home, which you didn’t realize could be anything but grey.</p><p>Your mother is packing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Follow If You Lead

Something is happening. It resonates through your house, stirring the dust, lifting the spell of singular monotony that affects the course of daily life, and somehow retracts the grey that has seeped from all of Ivarstead into your own home, which you didn’t realize could be anything _but_ grey.

Your mother is packing.

Your name is Kanaya Maryam, you are presently five and a half years old, and you are standing over your mother’s satchel, watching her gently fold away sets of clothes in bright colors you never knew could adorn fabric. You suck on the two foremost fingers of your right hand as you watch, and Mother is so preoccupied that she does not reprimand you, folding a long green and black dress into her bag. You’ve seen green on clothing before, but not like this. This green is bright and vibrant: it stands out against the fabric’s black, and it is nothing like Jofthor’s tunic, which he wears every day out in the field and is green as well but has also absorbed the grey that permeates the town. You wonder if Mother kept the dress hidden away to keep it from becoming grey like everything else.

When you reach out to touch the sheer fabric of a veil, your mother’s hand captures your own gently. She says it isn’t for little girls, and you nod understandingly, then again when she pulls your hand from your mouth with equal care. You take a step back before she can ask and continue to watch, with eyes that Klimmick once said were as big as the moon.

Your mother is packing, and she is taking you with her.

Porrim doesn’t like it. But she’s ten and old enough to take care of herself, though not old enough to take care of you, Mother says, and there isn’t time to come up with a more suitable arrangement. So Porrim is left in Ivarstead, and the next morning you are being clothed in a traveling cloak you’ve only ever worn to temple and your best shoes, with two changes of clothes tucked into your mother’s bag. You yourself carry a smaller bag, the one she uses to gather flowers and herbs, with small amounts of food tucked inside of it.

You are going to a place called Windhelm.

First, mother says, the two of you must go to Whiterun. It is nearly a day away, and you’re awakened before the sun is up to begin the walk, and from there, you are to take a carriage to Windhelm. You’ve seen horses before, often belonging to the pilgrims wishing to climb High Hrothgar, and even once, you’ve seen a carriage. But you’ve never ridden in one before. There isn’t a stable in Ivarstead, and your family is too poor to afford it anyway. Apparently, whatever lies in Windhelm is an exception.

The day of walking is conducted in the most bleary-eyed manner possible. You toddle along with one hand encased in your mother’s, the other, after a while, finding its place in your mouth. You must look sorely pathetic, for Mother does not reprimand you even once during the long walk. By afternoon, your bleary eyes have given way to dragging feet, and you wonder how the world could be so big to walk an entire day and never see another house when you could run all the way around Ivarstead without even losing your breath.

By nightfall, you are in your mother’s arms, being carried along the road, and shortly after that you are nowhere you recognize, in a warm bed with sunlight streaming through the windows. The blanket is sunny yellow, and though the walls are simply whitewashed, there are dark oaken supports that have a rich color. You wonder how Ivarstead is so consistently grey.

Mother is asleep beside you, and even she looks less grey outside of Ivarstead. Everything must, you think, and you come to the conclusion that anyone who stays there is foolish.

You slide off the bed, goosebumps pricking along your skin as your bare feet come in contact with the cool wooden floor. Mother is still asleep, and since you don’t know where you are, you probably shouldn't leave the room you're in. Instead, you busy yourself with clothes. Usually, Porrim or your mother will help you get dressed in the morning, but you’re pretty sure you can do it yourself by now. Besides, you aren’t supposed to wake your mother in the mornings unless it’s important. With tiny fingers, you undo the clasp on your mother’s satchel and pull back the flap, exposing both of your clothes to the sunny morning light. Your mother’s green and black dress with the sheer veil is on the top, and it takes all of your five-year-old willpower not to touch it, though you do stare at the vibrant fabric for much longer than necessary before you find one of your own dresses.

Changing is a challenge. You are able to get out of your nightgown with no trouble, but the dress you are attempting to put on has crossed straps in the back that you just _can’t_ get on right until after yo’uve put your head into the armhole at least twice. And even after accomplishing that, you still have to try to tie the ribbons that hang from your side and are meant to go into a bow behind you. You try several times but are unable to even work it into a tangle. Instead, a brilliant idea hits you, one you should have thought of before, and you take the ribbons in your hands and tie a lopsided bow around your stomach, in the front of the dress instead of the back. With that disaster averted, you turn to your shoes, which have been placed neatly beside the bed.

Shoes are a tricky thing. Each is intended to go on a certain foot, but you can never quite remember which is left and which is right, and since Mother and Porrim are always around to help you, you haven’t quite figured out how to determine the difference on your own yet. Instead you just put your hands into the small fur-lined shoes, holding them up in the air as you sit on the floor and contemplate the secrets of foot-adornment. It’s only then that you notice your mother is awake, watching you from the bed with a fond smile.

“Set them side by side,” she says, and you pull both off of your hands and comply. “You know they’re going the correct way when the longer sides are touching.” One side of each shoe is a little longer than the other, and they stick out, away from one another. As per your mother’s instruction, you rearrange the shoes so that the points are touching and they both slope gently from the center. “That’s a good girl. Can you put them on, too?” When you do, she kisses your forehead and you beam, displaying the gap in your front teeth.

“Come here, darling, let me fix your dress.”

Apparently, you stayed the night at an inn in Whiterun. You know that the Vilemyr Inn in Ivarstead has beds for pilgrims to stay in, but you’ve only ever gone in to listen to Lynly sing in the afternoons. You have never slept in one, nor have you ordered food from one. Mother always had plenty of food growing in her garden, and the few septims you have are always already stretched too thin. Even you know that. But today, Mother sets you down at the bar and orders breakfast for the two of you. The milk is cold, and the bread is sweet, and you’re not sure if you’ve ever tasted anything so good.

It makes you wonder what’s in Windhelm that’s so special for your mother to spend so much gold to go get it.

After breakfast, the two of you walk down the steps to the gate of the city, with you marveling at everything you pass. There’s a marketplace with stalls just as you exit the tavern, and strangers loiter about, garbed in brightly colored fabric and fur worn. Just down the steps you see a smithy, and beyond that, a huge stone wall with massive wooden doors. The wall is the only grey thing in the city, but it doesn’t look washed out like everything in Ivarstead.

The guards let you through the gates, and just like that, Whiterun is gone; you are walking again. Your feet ache from walking so long yesterday, and you hope you don’t have to go far. Mother said you were to ride a horse-drawn carriage today, and the idea of sitting tall atop a wooden wagon drawn by big, beautiful horses excites you. Luckily, the stables aren’t far off, and even from your vantage point walking down the cobbled path from Whiterun, you can see the horses standing in their stalls, along with a worn wooden carriage hitched up to a large brown horse with a sandy-haired driver lounging in the front seat. It isn’t entirely what you expect. You pictured a richly colored carriage with colorful rugs draped across the seats for comfort, perhaps with shade hanging from above to block out the unrelenting sunlight. Instead, the carriage is open and of a faded wood that reminds you too strongly of Ivarstead. But when you go down to greet the driver he is cheerful and friendly, with lines around his eyes that crinkle whenever he smiles and a pronounced Nordic accent. You decide to like him.

“Where to?” he asks, as your mother picks you up and sets you in the back. She gives Windhelm as a response as she climbs up herself, holding her skirt with one hand and the railing of the carriage with the other. Though the carriage is empty, you sit down right next to your mother, so that your sides are touching. You thought you’d like the carriage, but from all the way up here, the ground seems far away, and it frightens you. The sandy-haired man cracks his whip in the air, and the clop of feet begins to pull the wagon out onto the road. There is a lull in the way the wagon rocks with the lumber of the horse, and as you get used to the height and the feel, you relax a bit and chance a few inches of space between yourself and your mother.

“So what’s your name, little one?” Your head snaps up when you realize the carriage driver is talking to you, and immediately you shy behind your mother’s cloak, reclaiming every inch you slipped away.

Your mother chuckles. “Kanaya doesn’t speak much,” she explains, placing her arm on your shoulder. Even as the carriage driver laughs and turns back to the road, you don’t extract yourself from the folds of her cloak. “She didn’t even start talking until she was nearly four. I thought she was dumb.”

“Wish my kids were like that. They squabble and argue and yammer all day. Love ‘em, but sometimes I wish they’d be quiet for a little while.”

“Kanaya’s older sister talks enough for the both of them, so I can sympathize.”

“What takes you to Windhelm, anyway? See lots of people heading to Ivarstead, but not many leaving.”

“A friend of mine has passed away,” your mother says. She sits a little straighter, speaks a little more stiffly, like she does whenever you or Porrim venture to ask for something you can’t have. “I’m going to Windhelm to collect his son.”

This is new information. You turn your eyes up to your mother, watching her more intently to see if she will expand on her statement, but she only comments that she refuses to allow the son of one of her closest friends be sent to the Riften orphanage. With that, the conversation turns to other topics which no longer interest you, so you look out over the landscape, eyes taking in the entire breadth of the surrounding fields. You aren’t so far outside of Whiterun yet that you can’t see it, and the city rises up behind the wagon on its tall hill, grey rock and bright green grass spread intermittently around it. The sky is crystal blue today, with tufts of white clouds floating lazily through it. You wonder what Porrim is doing back home in Ivarstead. Probably she is still asleep, as she was always the hardest to rouse in the morning and always the most cross about having to get up. You’re glad Porrim isn’t old enough to take care of you, because in two days you’ve already seen more color and more beauty than in all of what you can remember of living in Ivarstead, and you wish you never had to go back.

You watch the landscape for several hours until after you and mother eat dinner, when, despite the harsh afternoon light, the rocking of the wagon lulls you to sleep.

Mother rouses you from your sleep to a stopped carriage and the lingering remnants of sunset, streaks of purple hanging over the western sky and clinging to the deep field of stars twinkling quietly overhead. The cold of winter stings here like it didn’t in Whiterun, but in your sleep Mother has wrapped your warm coat around your body and fastened your traveling cloak under your chin, and though the cold is sharp, it doesn’t cut through you. She thanks the driver once more with a curtsey and a quietly bade farewell, her voice little more than a murmur as she scoops you into her arms. You settle comfortably into them and continue to doze as she walks you up a short flight of steps and across a long bridge, and your eyes grow heavier listening to the click of her shoes against stone. The last things you remember are a flood of warmth, your mother pulling your clothes off, and a blanket being pulled up to your chin. Then it’s morning.

You wake early, stomach growling from having slept through supper, but today your mother is already awake. She’s wearing a faded blue work dress you’ve seen many a time, with a fur-lined cloak you see less often. It’s not yet cold enough in Ivarstead for fur.

“Get dressed, Kanaya,” Mother says when she sees that you’re awake. “I’m getting breakfast for us, then we must start looking for Karkat.” Now you have a name, too. You dress quietly, putting on the wool pants and the long-sleeved dress your mother laid out on the foot of the bed, then putting your shoes on the proper feet. You pick up your traveling cloak and meet your mother at the bar, where she has ordered porridge and a glass of warm milk for you. The stools are too short and the bar is too tall, so as you eat, you have to sit on your knees to easily reach your breakfast. You scarf down your food, but even as the last oats are being scraped from the bowl, you’re still hungry. Shifting nervously, you look to your mother, who is deep in conversation with the bartender. Even if she wasn’t talking to another grown-up, children were not to speak unless spoken to during meals, and you don’t dare to even tug on her sleeve. So you look at some of the other patrons situated at the bar with you. There is a man with a large beard but very little hair atop his head wearing lovely furs and vibrant clothes sitting several seats away, eating a large breakfast, and just two seats from you is an older man with thin hair as white as the snow and deep blue skin. The old man catches you staring mournfully at his full plate of food and grins. He has a wrinkly smile, and you can see that he’s missing a few teeth, just like you. You caution a gap-toothed smile in return, and he laughs mirthfully. You shrink down a little in your chair as your smile fades, but you continue to watch him, and he does the same, until your mother’s voice calls you to attention.

“Kanaya, darling, it’s time to go.” She walks to the door as you climb down from the chair, but before you have the chance to follow her, someone taps you on the shoulder. You spin around, frightened, but it’s just the old man, chuckling and holding a sweet roll.

“Here you go, little fawn.” He has a thick accent you don’t recognize, and he places the sweet roll gently in your hands, which you outstretch tremblingly. Your eyes meet his, wide, and you try to stutter out a thank you, but Mother calls you again, and you scamper out the door with the roll still in hand. It’s still hot, and out in the cold air it feels good on your fingers. You’ve only managed to lick off the sticky sweet icing when Mother takes hold of your hand, and you drop the roll into the pocket of your cloak, finally looking around the city.

Windhelm has walls like Whiterun, but it doesn’t have any of the color. It’s big and bleak and grey, and wind courses through the streets and blows the thin layer of snow asunder, stinging your cheeks even though the hood of your cloak is pulled up. The walls don’t seem protective like those in Whiterun, instead, they seem imposing and mazelike, trapping you in too-narrow walkways and making you feel claustrophobic for the first time in your life, though you love huddling in small spaces.

You hold fast to your mother’s hand.

Mother takes you to a back area of the town, where several people with blue skin like the man in the bar linger. All of them look grey: washed out like the adults from Ivarstead. They carry defeat on their shoulders and exhaustion in the lines of their faces, and your mother grips your hand tighter as you walk to a shop with a faded sign in front of it. You look silently at trinkets mounting battered shelves as your mother talks to the shopkeeper.

“My name is Dolorosa Maryam, I’m looking for Sepphir’s son,” she says, while you study a faded porcelain horse. The shopkeeper hesitates, and the pause permeates the building.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know where he is.” The woman’s voice is much quieter than your mother’s, and it is harsh and raspy. You twist your head so you can look at her; she is a bony woman with hollowed in cheeks and a heavy brow. “And keep your kid away from the stuff.”

“Kanaya.” You obediently return to your mother’s side, wrapping your hand around three of her fingers. “I don’t mean harm by asking; Sepphir was a dear friend of mine. I’ve heard that Karkat is living on the streets, and the woman at the inn said you were the most likely to know the boy’s whereabouts. I intend to speak to the Jarl’s steward so I can take him home with me to Ivarstead.”

The shopkeeper stares hard at your mother, scrutinizing her. She is a moderately well-dressed Altmer with a crisp Aldmeri accent, hardly the type of person who would come all the way from Ivarstead to collect a poor Dunmer boy without ulterior motives. “I said I don’t know. Pouring your story out to me ain’t going to change that.”

Mother purses her lips, and you wonder if she’s going to raise her voice at the hollow woman. Instead, she just smiles. “Thank you for your time, regardless. I suppose we’ll have to ask someone else.” She turns to the door.

Just as she sets her hand on the knob, the woman speaks up. “You go nosing into things like this, your kid is going to end up just like him.” Mother turns back around.

“What exactly should I avoid nosing in?”

“All of this. Sepphir. Karkat. People down here in the Grey Quarter’ll throw the boy table scraps if they can spare them, but ain’t nobody got the money to take in a new kid, and nobody in the rest of the city gives a shit about one more starving Dunmer. Kid’s scared, but he ain’t stupid. He ain’t gonna trust nobody but a Dunmer, so you ain’t gonna find him by looking anywhere but here, and you sure as hell ain’t gonna get no good out of nothing if you start nosin’ around and askin’ questions. Nobody here likes no one else right now and if you go remindin’ people of the fact, they ain’t gonna like you either.”

“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind. Thank you very much.” The Dunmer woman grunts in response, and the two of you return to the cold outside. The bell hung in the doorway tinkles as you leave.

“Stay very close to me, Kanaya,” your mother says.

You walk the Grey Quarter several times, once or twice stopping so your mother can vaguely ask if anyone’s seen a little boy. Nobody has, though you wonder if they’re being entirely truthful, because they don’t meet your mother’s eyes.

When she stops again, that’s when you see him. Mother has found another loitering Dunmer, this time a man roughly her age, with big hands and broad shoulders concealed by threadbare fabric. You are bored and cold and tired and you don’t even bother listening to the conversation, because it will just be the same as the others. They are all scared to talk about the Vantases. They are all scared to meet the same fate.

You pull both of your hands into your pockets and your eyes wander, and that’s when they settle on a shadow of a child, crouched in a nook between the stone wall and one of the buildings. He has sharp red eyes that you can see even from where you’re standing, though the rest of his figure is obscured in shadow. You cast a look up to your mother, but she hasn’t seen him, and you can’t interrupt her talking. You look back at the boy. He is fixated on a guard stationed further down the street and doesn’t see you, so after glancing spuriously at your mother one more time, you slip away from her, cautiously approaching the boy with the red eyes.

He doesn’t notice you until you’re nearly in front of him, and when he does, he recoils into the wall. The boy looks scrawny and scruffy, with greasy unwashed hair matted from sleeping on the streets and dirt caking his clothes and body. He is all bones, with a thin, empty-looking face, and his eyes pierce more from this distance than they did from over by your mother.

“What’re you lookin’ at?” His voice is parched and dry, with a venomous edge to it that says how plainly he doesn’t trust you.

“Are you Karkat?” Your voice is soft, not much firmer than the wind, but careful and clear.

The suspicion in his eyes doesn’t fade. “So what if I am?”

“My name is Kanaya Maryam. Would you like a sweet roll? I licked the icing off the top, and it’s not hot anymore, but I could share it with you if you want. Or you could have the whole thing. I don’t mind.” You pause, then pull the roll from your pocket. There are a few threads of lint clinging to it, which you dust off, breaking it in half. Kneeling down on the ground in front of the boy, you offer the larger half to him. He stares at it, as if trying to figure out if there could possibly be some consequence from accepting half of a sweet roll from a quiet Altmer, but in the end his hunger wins out. He grabs the bread, stuffing it in his mouth eagerly. You break off pieces of your own half and eat those as you watch him, then when he’s done, you give him your half as well.

“My mother is looking for you,” you say, when he finishes the last crumbs of the sweet roll and is busy licking his fingers. He looks over at you warily. “We came all the way from Ivarstead. I heard her say she was friends with your father.”

“My father is dead.” His voice has hardened again, the scowl returning. He wipes his hands on his pants.

“I know. That’s why Mother came up to find you. She didn’t want you to be stuck here all on your own.” Karkat doesn’t look like he quite believes you, but he doesn’t make any move to leave, just sitting beside you in peace.

~~~

Your name is Dolorosa Maryam, and you are not having a good day.

‘Not having a good day’ is something of an understatement. You are having a miserable day. Perhaps a frustrating day. An argument could be put in for ‘fucking awful day’, if you were the type to swear and you didn’t have your five-year-old daughter with you to hear.

You spent all of yesterday on a hot, stiff carriage ride from Whiterun to Windhelm. You spent the entire day prior to that walking from Ivarstead to Whiterun. You did both of those things with a five-year-old in tow.

It could be worse. Kanaya is subdued and obedient, and for all of her quirks, she is seldom trying. And with her here, you don’t have to worry about if Porrim is taking care of her properly in Ivarstead, though it does add a whole list of new worries as you tote a mute infant through a tension-charged city, searching for the son of the man whose death brought the strain to the verge of boiling over. But you doubt Kanaya fully understands what’s going on, and you know for sure that she’s enjoyed getting out of Ivarstead. You’ve never in your life seen the little one’s eyes so big, and the wonder in her face as you travelled the countryside was very nearly worth every bit of stress loaded onto you for having brought her.

You have spent the entire morning looking for Karkat Vantas, son of Sepphir Vantas, the rallying voice of equal rights for Dunmer in Windhelm, recently pushed off the edge of the bridge before the gates of Windhelm, in a blatant homicide ruled by the bribed guards to be a suicide. Nobody seems keen on providing information in this city, and while you can’t really blame them, you just want to find Karkat and get home, so you can put Windhelm far, far behind you. But your time here, short though it’s been, has told you that the walls have ears, and that Sepphir’s death was a perfectly-executed scare tactic that has effectively disbanded the rallying cries for better treatment of Dunmer throughout Windhelm. Sepphir himself is something of a taboo topic, and the only way you’ve been able to garner any response at all to bringing him up is to speak in hushed tones or in rooms devoid of Nords. Even then your success has varied. All you know is that the child is somewhere in the Grey Quarter, and that he is most likely wary of non-Dunmer adult figures.

After another unsuccessful tour of the walls, you begin to wonder if the woman in the general store hadn’t been lying to you. Sure, if the boy doesn't want you to find him, he knows the streets better than you, but he’s only _five_. If Karkat is in the Grey Quarter, you feel as though he should have turned up by now.

On your next walkthrough of the sector, you stop to talk to a middle aged man who looks like he’s done hard manual labor his entire life. What you’re hoping for is that he might be a former coworker of Sepphir, and you have a feeling that your hunch is correct, but the man is stubborn and difficult to pry information from, untrusting of your Altmer heritage.

You don’t notice when Kanaya wanders off. You just know that once minute she is there, and the next she is gone, and that the panic that floods through your body is instantaneous and wild. You scan the street, looking at a thousand places at once, then spin around and do the same thing, your mouth dry and your eyes wide.

“Kanaya?!” Kanaya isn’t the type to just wander off. She hasn’t so much as left your side the entire trip, and she’s barely even let go of your hand. You’d like to think she’d have been able to say something if something happened to her, but by the Eight, what if something happened to her? The shopwoman warned you exactly of this, and now your little girl is missing in what is inarguably the roughest part of town, and there is nothing you can think of to find her except to run down the street, fear searing in your lungs as painfully as the cold.

You almost run past her, past your daughter kneeling on the ground with her tiny cloak flared behind her as she faces a shadowed snowbank. “Kanaya!” Your voice is choked with worry and relief and you fall to the ground beside her, scooping the child up in your arms. “What has gotten into you?! You know better than to leave me like that! You scared me to death!” Kanaya is safe, but you can’t quite choke your fear down, and you press your forehead against hers. She looks scared and apologetic.

“I- I’m sorry.” Kanaya looks nearly as shaken up by your fright as you are, but her eyes slide away from you and to the shadows at her side. You instinctively follow suit, and the worry etched onto your face smoothes into understanding. _Oh._ Sitting next to Kanaya is a little Dunmer boy with Sepphir’s stubborn chin, his eyes, his downturned scowl. He has pressed himself up against the wall, clearly distrustful of your presence but not quite willing to commit to flight. You pull Kanaya into your lap and sit across from the boy, swallowing as if it would help to quell your still-trembling heartbeat or the too-slowly-receding adrenaline in your veins.

“Hello,” you say, voice a gentle murmur. “Did I frighten you?” Karkat shakes his head stubbornly, but he still hasn’t backed away from the wall any, and you know you did. “I’m sorry.” Kanaya has relaxed into your arms, and Karkat takes it as a cue to look you over once more.

“Are you Kanaya’s mom?”

“I am. Are you Sepphir’s son?” There’s no point of asking, really. He wears Sepphir’s ghost on every inch of his body, the resemblance in both appearance and demeanor striking. He nods.

“Are you here to take me away?”

“I’m here to take you to my home, if you will let me.” He looks so uncertain and scared, and for a moment, you can see just how lost the child is. “Will you let me?”

Karkat stares at you for a long moment, then in a voice tight with emotion, he says, “I miss my dad.” You feel your heart break in two. If you could, you would hunt down every single man who took part in Sepphir’s death and walk each of them off of the bridge before the walls of the city and into the rocky, black waters below, and you would feel no regret. Instead, you shift Kanaya to one side of your lap and open your arms to the boy.

“I know,” you whisper as he crawls forward. “I’m so sorry.”

You embrace him with all your might.

~~~

Your name is Karkat Vantas, and you’ve just had your first hot meal in nearly two weeks.

After she found you, Kanaya’s mom carried both you and Kanaya back to Candlehearth Hall and set you down at a table before ordering a large meal for everybody. You dive into it gleefully because you haven’t had a full stomach in weeks and because it’s _hot_ , which is a concept you’ve all but forgotten the meaning of while trapped outside in the icy winter. Kanaya is quiet throughout the meal unless her mother asks her a question, and you are typically too busy stuffing food into your gullet to speak, though sometimes Ms. Maryam – (you can call me Miss Rosa) – is able to get a question in, of when your birthday is (twelfth of Midyear), where you’ve been sleeping (in a pile of hay behind the general goods store), how much food you’ve had (not enough). You answer all of the questions obediently, between bites of food.

“Tomorrow, you and I will go up to speak to the Jarl. We’ll get all of this sorted out and take you home.”

You don’t want to see the Jarl, but you do want to escape Windhelm and never return, at least until you're big enough to get the men who killed your father. And you _will_ get them. You saw them attack your father, saw them drag him away to, as you heard later, dump his body in the ocean. They dragged his body to the bridge and threw him off, and the guards who were standing watch that night ruled it as a suicide. When they came back and doused your house in kerosene, you fled, and you were too scared to go back to the burning house to even use its flames for warmth.

It didn’t matter, you couldn’t sleep anyway. And that never changed, from the moment you became homeless, to now, you never slept more than an hour or two at a time. Sleeping in the cold could mean never waking up, and you had to wake up because you had to grow up so you could kill them all.

Though the cold stung your skin, it never penetrated into your core, and you always woke up.

After dinner, Miss Rosa sends Kanaya to her room and takes you to the bartender, asking for use of the bathing tub. She takes you into a side room with a fire and a cauldron of water, pouring it into a basin big enough for even her to sit in, then helps to strip you down and sets you in carefully. The water is warm, and it feels heavenly encasing your body. You sink down into it up to your nose, letting the tendrils of heat seep into your skin, and you think you may never come out again.

Your heaven is cut short when Miss Rosa starts to clean you. You're covered in soot and ash and two weeks of grunge, and she comes upon you with a washrag and a bar of soap, scrubbing your back, your arms, behind your ears. She cleans beneath your fingernails and scrubs the back of your neck and your face and the soles of your feet, and when she discovers the scabbed-up skeever bite on your heel, you watch in amazement as her hand glows brilliantly with ribbons of light and a simple rub of her thumb over the injury relieves you of pain that has affected your step for almost a week. You are scrubbed so vehemently that your skin takes on a tender reddish color.

After she towels you off and dumps the water, Miss Rosa wraps you in her big warm cloak and carries you back to their bedroom, where Kanaya is already waiting, wearing her nightgown. Rinstructs her to say her prayers, and you listen curiously as Kanaya kneels down beside the bed and clasps her hands together, voice barely more than a whisper as she recites a prayer to Kynareth. It seems fitting that your savior worships the goddess of the heavens.

“Do you worship a single deity?” Miss Rosa asks, taking her cloak back and hanging it on a hook in the wall. She reaches into her bag and pulls out a plain nightgown of faded blue, long enough to go to your knees and made of wool. Kanaya’s is finer and made with laces and patterns on it, but yours is warm and the fabric is soft on your skin. When you pull it on, the sleeves are too long and fall over your hands, and Miss Rosa chuckles as she rolls them up.

“No Ma’am,” you croak. You hope it isn’t some sort of dealbreaker, and that she won’t cast you out for not liking any of them better than the others, except maybe Arkay. But she doesn’t seem angry, she just takes you down onto your knees beside the bed and asks if you know how to pray. You nod: Dad did teach you that. You clasp your hands together just like Kanaya and recite a prayer, thanking the Nine for each of their blessings and asking them to watch over you. When you finish, Miss Rosa tucks you into bed beside Kanaya, then disappears from the room to change. She later returns with damp hair, wearing a long nightgown aged somewhat from its original color but more elaborate than even Kanaya’s. She kneels by the bed and you watch her intently as she folds her hands in her lap and closes her eyes, though she does not say her prayers out loud. When she’s finished, she climbs into the bed beside Kanaya, who is now in the middle, then blows out the candle flickering on the table. Though you feel like there has been too much excitement today for you to possibly fall asleep, as soon as the room falls into darkness, you disappear into your dreamland.

Kanaya is still asleep when you wake up, but there is a candle lit on one of the nightstands, and Miss Rosa isn’t in the bed. You don’t sit up, but you look around, and you find her in front of the wardrobe, standing naked before it. Her golden skin looks even warmer in the flickering light of the yellow flame, which casts dancing shadows across the room. When you sit up in bed, Miss Rosa seems to hear you shift and turns. You shrink uncertainly behind the blankets, but she doesn’t seem angry, instead just smiling at you.

“Good morning, Karkat.” She turns her attention back to the wardrobe, pulling out a long green and black dress, which she slips over her body, obscuring it. The dress has thin, skintight sleeves that go down to her wrists and shorter, loose sleeves that fall past her elbows and swish elegantly whenever she moves. It buttons up to her throat, and the green lines that fall all along the dress go even up to there, where she fastens a brooch in place. She looks stunning, every bit as elegant as the noblewomen who take to the wealthier side of the city, and you continue to stare as she pulls a sheer cloak from the closet, made from a gauzy green material with a black, embroidered nape that covers her shoulders and fastens around her neck. The shimmering green fabric cascades over her body and casts her into a gossamer silhouette, and you wish nothing more than to run your hands through the fabric.

“I washed and patched up the clothes you were wearing,” Miss Rosa says, effectively drawing your attention away from her clothes. She is kind and smiling, though tension clings to the lines of her tender smile. “Your outfit is very nice: it will do well for visiting the palace today.” It’s only then you notice the clothes she had taken from you the night before, washed and draped on the foot of your bed, looking as good as new. You slide out from under the covers and curl your toes at the contact with the cold floor but wordlessly change out of your nightgown, possessed with an unexpected shyness. Your outfit is fairly plain, with dark pants and a red shirt, but the jacket you had been wearing is the nicest you own, embroidered with your family’s coat of arms on the back. You pull all your clothes on and then step into your shoes, and Miss Rosa sends you out to the bar with ten septims and a request to buy three bowls of porridge. By the time it’s all ready, she’s brought a sleepy-eyed Kanaya out to join you, dressed in a strapped dress with a bow tied behind it. In this weather, it’s not a going out dress.

As you eat, Miss Rosa instructs Kanaya, who is staying alone in the inn while the two of you go up to the Palace of the Kings. She is to stay in her room, she is to work on her needlepoint, and she is not to talk to anyone except the barkeep, who will come in and check on her so she can use the restroom or get food. Kanaya nods to each rule, and she’s rewarded with a kiss on the head as you all finish breakfast.

“Be a good girl, Kanaya,” Miss Rosa says, rising from the table. “We’ll be back this afternoon.”

She holds your hand as you walk through the streets, your nerves rising with every step. You don’t want to see Jarl Ulfric; you don’t want to see his steward. You don’t want to see any of the men who have segregated the city and set the stage for your father’s death.

You arrive at the palace too soon, and Miss Rosa leads you up the steps, greeting the guards with a curtsy. She doesn’t smile: instead, the expression on her face is collected, with an air of sophistication and superiority.

“I’m here for a meeting with the Jarl’s steward.” Nothing in her voice has technically changed: she speaks with the same Altmer accent and the same tone, but now she sounds regal, queenly. The guards let her in without complaint, and she sweeps you inside. You have never been inside the palace, and you stare now, because the floors are adorned with thick blue rugs, and there’s a table that stretches all the way across the room, where mounted against the wall, is a throne.

Miss Rosa speaks to you, and it is with the gentle voice from the inn, not the queenly voice with which she spoke to the guards. “Remember, Karkat, you mustn’t speak unless spoken to, and you must always say ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’. Don’t say anything rude, and don’t fidget or look about. You must be on your best behavior while here.” You nod, though your mouth goes dry. What happens if you mess up?

The guard stationed indoors asks if you have an appointment, and Miss Rosa says she is to meet with the Jarl’s steward, Jorleif. He directs her to the opposite end of the throne room, to a man standing by the Jarl.

The closer you get to Ulfric and Jorleif, the tighter you hold onto Miss Rosa’s hand, anxiety rising up inside of you until you’re not sure you could even speak when spoken to, let alone out of turn.

Jorleif turns to you and Miss Rosa when you approach, and when she holds out her hand, he kisses it politely.

“How do you do?” Miss Rosa asks. She is the royal Miss Rosa again, every bit as noble as the Jarl situated only yards away from you. You do your best not to let your eyes wander to him, riveting your gaze instead on Jorleif. “I have an appointment with you to discuss the death of Sepphir Vantas and the relocation of his son.”

“Ah, yes. Why don’t you come to my chambers so we can discuss things privately?” Jorleif guides you and Miss Rosa to a room off to the left, holding the door for you and then closing it tightly behind. The room is less lavish than the throne room but still richly decorated, with tapestries hanging from the walls and the same blue carpet on the floor. He invites Miss Rosa to one of two chairs at his table, and she sits promptly. Unsure of where you’re meant to go, you station yourself beside her, standing tall and trying not to squirm with nerves.

Miss Rosa doesn’t waste any more time with civilities. As soon as the steward has taken his seat, she begins to talk, her voice crisp and no-nonsense. “I am looking to adopt Sepphir’s son Karkat, to take him with me from Windhelm to my home in Ivarstead.”

“I’m afraid we’re presently unable to do anything with the boy. He has a brother old enough to be his guardian whom we have been trying to get in contact with, but to no avail. Since there is a next of kin, young Mister Vantas is not presently up for adoption.”

“Young Mister Vantas was found by my daughter and myself, half-starved on the streets, where he has been living for two weeks since his father’s premature death. If Karkat is not presently up for adoption and unallowed to be taken into anyone’s home, then it is the responsibility of the court to provide him with housing and food while they search for the next of kin, a responsibility I have discovered has not been fulfilled.”

You can’t tell if Jorleif is irritated or flustered. “We looked for the boy but couldn’t find him. If he had come forward to the palace, the proper steps would have been taken.” He is definitely irritated when he glares at you. You clench your fists but remain silent, just as Miss Rosa said.

“You mean to say that with all of your resources and with all the guards at your disposal, you were incapable of finding one little boy.”

“It’s a big city, and our resources have been stretched thin as of late. We haven’t had time to devote solely to looking for a scrappy Dunmer kid.”

“Yes, I’m sure you’ve had your hands full investigating his father’s death. Have you made any progress with it?”

“It was a suicide, ma’am. Nothing to investigate. Guards saw him walk off the bridge of his own accord.” You can’t help it, you look up at Miss Rosa. She looks as composed as she did when she first entered the palace, though you wonder if she’s as angry as you at the lies they’ve weaved.

“I suppose his house burned down of its own accord, too?”

“He was an unstable man, Miss… I’m sorry, I don’t believe I ever got your name.”

“Maryam.”

This brings Jorleif a longer hesitation than anything Miss Rosa has said so far. He seems to pale, looking at her with suddenly more reverence. “Miss Maryam.  He was a very unstable man. Always drinking and stirring up fights. We believe he burned the place down himself. Got too angry. In fact, we weren’t even sure if the boy had survived the fire or not.” He hesitated again. “That’s an old Altmer name you have. Why take an interest in a poor man’s son?

“Sepphir was a dear friend of mine. I’ve known him for many years, and I knew his elder son would be nigh impossible to contact. If not permanently, I wish to take in Karkat at least until Kankri returns from his travels.” She seems to be able to sense that Jorleif is off guard and produces a package of papers, bound together by a black ribbon. “You’ll find all of the requisite paperwork here. My proof of citizenship, my birth certificate, the location of my home, and even the certificates of my two children.”

Jorleif and Miss Rosa continue to negotiate, debating back and forth without either of them ever even once raising their voices. You wonder how it’s even possible to contain so much anger in such a calm tone. You and your father are passionate and wild when fury strikes, but Miss Rosa is cool and clipped, striking like a rapier into her target.

You aren’t sure which is more dangerous.

It takes the better part of the morning for Jorleif and Miss Rosa to finally reach an agreement, and when she is finally signing a looping signature onto a custody form, your feet hurt and your stomach is growling. You wish you didn’t have to stand up so long. But finally Miss Rosa is standing, and she accepts Jorlief’s hand one last time before thanking him graciously. Then, her hand finds yours, and you’re leaving; you’re finally leaving the palace, and as soon as you exit the huge doors, she scoops you up, hugging you fiercely and laughing.

“You did such a good job,” she says, holding you tightly in her arms. “I’m so proud of you.”

And you smile.

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a skyrimstuck universe crafted by myself and a friend of mine, [theraveninhisstudy](http://theraveninhisstudy.tumblr.com), in which Karkat, adoptive son of Dolorosa Maryam, is the housecarl to Dragonborn Jade Harley.


End file.
